Thorne looked at each of them. "For the Night of Reckoning. Whatever that is, it's coming. And we're the only ones who remember enough to potentially stop it."

"Or survive it," Marcus added grimly.

Thorne reached into her bag and pulled out seven small objects wrapped in cloth. "But first, you need protection. The frequencies you've been exposed to are intensifying. Without proper shielding, you'll end up like the Original Twelve—overwhelmed and overlaid."

She unwrapped the objects, revealing seven simple metal pendants on leather cords. Each one looked like a small tuning fork, but more intricate, with symbols etched into the metal that seemed to shift when you looked at them directly.

"Consciousness dampeners," Thorne explained. "Calibrated to your individual resonance frequencies. They'll help stabilize your awareness, prevent the codex from overwhelming your cognitive defenses."

She handed one to each of them. Lia's pendant was warm to the touch, vibrating slightly against her palm. The metal felt like nothing she'd ever encountered—not quite solid, not quite liquid, but something in between.

"Put them on," Thorne instructed. "And don't take them off. Not until this is over. They're your only protection against what's coming."

The seven students fastened the necklaces around their necks. Immediately, Lia felt different—more grounded, more centered, as if her consciousness had been anchored to something stable in a sea of chaos.

"Better?" Thorne asked.

"Much," Marcus said, touching his pendant. "It's like... like I can think clearly again."

"Good. The dampeners will help you maintain your individual identity even as the frequencies intensify. But they're not perfect. You'll still experience the effects of the codex—just in a more controlled way."

"Controlled how?" David asked.

"Instead of being overwhelmed by the broadcast, you'll be able to process it consciously. Instead of losing yourself in the frequencies, you'll be able to use them. Think of it as... learning to surf instead of being swept away by the wave."

Outside, the campus bells chimed midnight. But they rang thirteen times instead of twelve.

And in the distance, something that sounded like thunder rumbled through a clear night sky.

Thursday, October 23, 2025
8:47 AM

Lia's mother called while she was making coffee.

"Sweetheart, I saw the strangest thing on the news. Something about Aethelgard having a gas leak? They're saying several buildings are closed for repairs."

Lia's hand froze on the coffee pot. "Gas leak?"

"That's what they're reporting. Though your father thinks it sounds like a cover story. Very vague. Are you okay? You haven't been in those buildings, have you?"

The lie came easily. Too easily. "No, Mom. Different part of campus."

"Good. Also, honey, the bank called. There was an automatic refund to your account? Something about a cancelled class?"

Lia pulled up her banking app. There it was—a full refund for REL-447: Comparative Mythology and Cosmology. The course that supposedly never existed.

"Yeah, scheduling conflict," she managed. "Professor had to take emergency leave."

"Well, make sure you get into another class. You need those credits to graduate."

Lia felt a pang of guilt. Her mother's voice carried the familiar mix of concern and practical advice that had guided her through every crisis since childhood. The same voice that had comforted her after her first breakup, that had encouraged her when she'd doubted her choice of major, that had celebrated her acceptance to Aethelgard with genuine pride.

"Mom," Lia said, her voice catching slightly. "I love you. You know that, right?"

"Of course I do, sweetheart. Why are you asking? Is everything okay? You sound... different."

Lia closed her eyes, fighting back tears. How could she explain that she was about to risk everything—her life, her future, her very identity—for a cause her mother couldn't possibly understand? How could she tell her that the daughter she'd raised, the girl who'd always been so careful, so responsible, was about to become something else entirely?

"Everything's fine," Lia said, forcing her voice to sound normal. "Just... just wanted to make sure you knew. In case... in case anything ever happened to me."

"Lia," her mother's voice sharpened with alarm. "What's going on? You're scaring me. Are you in some kind of trouble?"

"No, Mom. I'm not in trouble. I'm just... I'm just thinking about the future. About how much you and Dad have done for me. About how grateful I am for everything."

"Lia, you're not making sense. What's really going on? Do I need to come up there? Should I call your father?"

Lia took a deep breath. "No, Mom. Don't come up here. Don't call Dad. Everything's fine. I just... I love you. That's all."

"Lia—"

"I have to go, Mom. I'll call you later, okay? I love you."

She hung up before her mother could respond, before she could hear the worry in her voice, before she could be tempted to tell the truth and drag her family into the nightmare that was about to consume her life.

Lia stared at her phone, tears streaming down her face. The news app showed three stories about Aethelgard: gas leak, building maintenance, and a small piece about "mental health resources being expanded after several students take medical leave."

No mention of missing students. No mention of Professor Finch.

Her phone buzzed. Text from an unknown number:

Meeting. Library basement. 2 PM. Come alone. - AT

Dr. Thorne.

2:00 PM

The library basement was a maze of archived periodicals and forgotten dissertations. Lia found the others in a study room that smelled like old paper and desperation. The seven from last night—Marcus, Elena, David Park (a philosophy major she'd seen in lectures), Yuki, Omar, Grace, and herself—plus Dr. Thorne, who looked like she hadn't slept.

"They're containing it," Thorne said without preamble. "What we're experiencing is called a Silence Protocol. It's happened before."

She spread out newspaper clippings on the table. Headlines from different decades, different countries:

"Gas Explosion at Prague University - 12 Injured" (1989)"Chemical Spill Closes Oslo Research Center" (2015)"Singapore Lab Quarantined After Ventilation Failure" (2015)

"Every time someone gets too close to the truth about entities like these, the same pattern emerges. Official story. Media compliance. Records altered. Witnesses discredited or..." she paused, "...removed."

"Who's 'they'?" David asked. "The government?"

"Not exactly. Think of it more as an immune response. Reality itself has defense mechanisms. When something threatens to tear the veil between dimensions, systems activate to contain the breach. Sometimes it's human agents who don't even know why they're doing what they're doing. Sometimes it's the entities themselves, manipulating probability."

Marcus laughed bitterly. "So we're being erased by reality's white blood cells?"

"In a sense, yes."

"Then why are we still here?" Lia asked. "Why haven't we been 'contained'?"

Thorne pulled out a leather journal—not the Prague one, a different one. "Because we're not the infection. We're antibodies. The system recognizes that some humans need to know the truth to prevent larger breaches. We're the canaries in the coal mine."

"Expendable canaries," Chen muttered.

"Perhaps. But necessary ones." Thorne reached into her bag and pulled out seven small objects wrapped in cloth. "But first, you need protection. The twelve who were overlaid—they didn't have this."

She unwrapped the objects, revealing seven necklaces made of a metal Lia couldn't identify. Each pendant was shaped like a tuning fork, intricate and delicate.

"Consciousness dampeners," Thorne explained. "They'll help keep your resonance frequencies stable. Without them, when you're exposed to the codex's quantum signature, you might get overwhelmed like the twelve did. These will keep you grounded in your own consciousness while still allowing you to receive the broadcast."

She handed one to each of them. "Wear them at all times. They're tuned to your individual frequency patterns. They'll protect you from being taken over, but they won't block the signal entirely. You'll still be able to hear what you need to hear."

Lia examined her necklace. The metal was warm to the touch, and when she held it close to her ear, she could hear a faint, almost musical hum.

"These are why we're still here," Thorne continued. "The twelve who were overlaid—they achieved full semantic resonance before I could get these to them. They understood too much, too quickly, without protection. You seven—you're strong enough to receive the signal, but not so strong that you're immediately vulnerable. With these dampeners, you can learn what you need to learn without being overwhelmed."

Thorne opened the journal. "This was written by Dr. Elara Voss, lead researcher from the Oslo team. Her final entry before disappearing."

She read aloud:

Day 12 post-exposure to codex resonance. The boundaries are thinning. I can see them now, even with my eyes closed. They're not invaders—they're refugees. Something drove them here, into the spaces between our reality and theirs. The codex isn't just a record. It's a plea for sanctuary.

The Night of Reckoning isn't their attack on us. It's what they're running from. And if the barriers fall completely, we'll face it together.

God help us all.

Silence filled the room.

"She's saying they're not the threat?" David asked. "Then what is?"

"I don't know. But Finch thought he did. Before he disappeared, he left this."

Thorne pulled out a flash drive. "Hidden in a library book. Byzantine Theological Commentaries, third edition. No one's checked it out since 1987. He knew I'd look there."

She plugged it into her laptop. A single video file.

Finch appeared on screen, but he looked wrong. Older. Exhausted. His usually wild hair was flat, his theatrical energy completely gone.

If you're watching this, then the Protocol has been activated and I'm either detained or... elsewhere. I don't have much time, so listen carefully.

The Mariner's Codex isn't from our reality. It's from a parallel dimension where the barriers between the physical and metaphysical are thinner. Where the Lumin and Daemons are visible. Where humans evolved differently to coexist with them.

That dimension is dying. Something is consuming it. The entities flee here, to our reality, through the cracks. The codex was sent as a warning. An instruction manual for what's coming.

I made contact with one of them. Not a Daemon. Not a Lumin. Something else. It showed me... images. Cities of impossible geometry crumbling into void. Billions of entities fleeing through dimensional tears. And behind them, something vast. Hungry. It feeds on consciousness itself.

The Night of Reckoning is when the barriers drop completely. When their refugees become our refugees. When we either learn to coexist or face extinction together.

The date was encoded in the codex's quantum signature. October 31st, 2025. Eight days from when I'm recording this.

Find the original twelve. The first students who understood. Some have been overlaid, yes, but not destroyed. They're bridges now. Human-entity hybrids. We'll need them.

And whatever you do, do NOT let the authorities destroy the codex. It's not just a record—it's an anchor. Without it, the barriers collapse chaotically instead of in a controlled manner. The difference between a door opening and a wall exploding.

I'm going to attempt something desperate. I think I can establish a permanent connection between our dimensions—become a bridge that allows two-way communication. If it works, I'll be able to guide you from the other side. If not... I'll be trapped there, but at least I'll have tried. Remember: iron for physical forms, running water for boundaries, and faith—genuine faith in something, anything—for mental protection.

The invocation in the codex, the one hidden in the marginalia, it's not a prayer to any specific deity. It's a treaty formula. Universal words that transcend any single tradition. Learn it. Use it when the time comes.

Good luck.

The video ended.

"Eight days," Marcus said. "Halloween."

"Of course it's Halloween," David muttered. "Because this wasn't cliché enough."

"The date's not random," Thorne said. "October 31st has been considered a thin time for millennia. Samhain. All Hallows' Eve. Día de los Muertos. The day when boundaries weaken naturally across multiple traditions."

"So what do we do?" Lia asked.

"We find the original twelve students. We protect the codex. And we prepare for refugees from another dimension to pour into our reality."

"How do we prepare for that?"

Thorne smiled grimly. "By learning the treaty. By understanding what Finch learned. And by accepting that in eight days, the world changes forever."

Chen stood up. "This is insane. You're talking about an interdimensional refugee crisis."

"Not invasion. Exodus. They're not coming to conquer. They're coming to survive."

"And the thing chasing them?"

"We better hope it can't follow."

That afternoon, Lia tried to live normally. Attended her other classes. Ate lunch with roommates who chatted about parties and papers while she thought about dimensional refugees.

The cognitive dissonance was overwhelming.

Her phone buzzed during Economics. Email from the university:

Dear Students, Due to unexpected maintenance requirements, the Humanities building will be closed October 31st for safety inspections. Any classes scheduled in that building will be moved online. We apologize for the inconvenience.

They were evacuating the building for Halloween. Someone in administration knew.

After class, she walked past the Humanities building. Yellow tape blocked the entrances. Security guards stood watch. But if you looked carefully, you could see other things: iron filings scattered on the windowsills, and symbols drawn in what looked like ash on the walls—barely visible, but there.

Someone was preparing defenses.

That night, she found Marcus in the library, surrounded by physics textbooks and covered in equations.

"I figured it out," he said without looking up. "The math. Why only some students are affected."

"Tell me."

"Resonance. Every consciousness has a frequency. Like a tuning fork. The codex broadcasts on multiple frequencies simultaneously. Most people don't match any of them—they hear nothing. But some of us..." He drew a wave pattern. "We resonate. We're in tune with it. That's why we understand. That's why we dream. That's why they can find us."

"Can we change our frequency?"

"Maybe. But it might be like trying to change your eye color by thinking really hard." He looked up at her. "Lia, what if we're not random? What if we were selected? Genetically, psychologically, spiritually—prepared for this moment?"

"By who?"

"I don't know. Evolution? The universe? The entities themselves, reaching back through time? Does it matter?"

Before she could answer, the lights flickered. Not the electrical pulse from before—this was different. Like reality itself hiccupped.